It is an increasing trend that hardware vendors tend to control delivery of mobile applications to mobile terminals. There are various reasons for that, such as a desire to collect royalties from applications sold and/or a desire to suppress software that does not meet with design guidelines, or software that comprises actual malware. It is common for mobile terminals to reject mobile applications that are not signed by the hardware vendor or an application store managed by the hardware vendor.
Applications for mobile terminals, called mobile applications in the following, are normally obtained from a repository managed by a supplier of the mobile terminal platform. For instance, Apple Inc. manages their own App Store, Amazon Appstore is a mobile application store for the Google Android operating system, Microsoft Phone Store and Microsoft Store are application stores for the Windows platform, and Nokia Store is the application store for Nokia devices. This list is non-exhaustive.
One of the problems associated with the above arrangement is that it is virtually impossible to deliver customized applications from mobile app stores. This is because each and every customized application has to be submitted for the app store for inspection and signing. Examples of applications that should be customized for individual customers include loyalty and/or membership cards, season passes for public transport and/or recreational facilities, and event passes that are available only for persons who physically attend an event.
A related problem is that the hardware vendors may require that applications delivered via their app stores are available for anyone, although payment may naturally be required. As a result, the app stores are not suitable for delivering applications which are targeted at a closed audience, such as applications for accessing sensitive information and/or applications that are in an alpha or beta test phase and not yet fit for publication.